Workers keep up the pressure

By G. Dunkel, Workers World, 2 October 1997

French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin campaigned on a platform of 35
hours work for 39 hours pay. Now unions there are pushing hard for the
jobs, pay, working hours and pensions Jospin promised.

According to a recent survey by the national statistics institute in
France, while the legal work week is 39 hours, more than half of
full-time workers put in 41 hours a week. The four French railway
unions called for a one-day strike Oct. 8, two days before a national
conference on employment. Jospin had promised to make job creation
his top priority. These unions led a three-week strike in 1995 that
nearly brought the country to a standstill.

The same week, unions at France Telecom called for a day of action in
the streets Sept. 30 to protest the government's plans to sell 20
percent of the company to private investors. The two largest unions
there are cooperating in the action despite their ideological
differences and their different proposals to solve the crisis.

On Sept. 19, some 300 workers blocked the entrances at the high-tech
Thomson-CSF firm. They set off strings of firecrackers, blew sirens
and hung banners demanding that the Thomson subsidiary Thomainfor be
re-acquired. Thomainfor is one of the leading computer and data
processing maintenance corporations in Europe. It had been spun off to
a U.S. company that went bankrupt.

Leftists in Paris are mobilizing against the National Front (FN), a
racist and fascist party in France. The FN is planning a two-day
festival in Paris Sept. 28 and 29. To meet this direct challenge to
the French left and progressive movement, the Communist Party
initiated a broad-based coalition of 84 organizations, including
representatives of the governing Socialist Party. The coalition plans
mass activities against the FN and fascism.